Eyeing the World – Climate Musings

Monthly Archives: September 2014

“Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

H.L. Mencken (1918)

It is chronically advanced by the members and fans of the climate establishment as an ostensibly documented (and hence undeniable) Truth – one of many such ‘Truths’ typically laid down as premises considered facts in argument by the warmists, one of many cornerstones of the ongoing promotional campaign for their ‘CO2 global warming hobgoblin’:

‘The Antarctic Peninsula endures some of the highest warming rates of any region of the world, warming several times (three, at least) as fast as the globe at large. Major events such as the breaking apart of the Larsen A and B ice shelves in 1995 and 2002 respectively are clear indicators of this calamitous warming.’

“(…) the Larsen Ice Shelf is a series of three shelves that occupy (or occupied) distinct embayments along the [eastern] coast [of the Antarctic Peninsula]. From north to south, the three segments are called Larsen A (the smallest), Larsen B, and Larsen C (the largest) by researchers who work in the area. The Larsen A ice shelf disintegrated in January 1995. The Larsen B ice shelf disintegrated in February 2002. The Larsen C ice shelf appeared to be stable in 2008, though scientists predict that, if localized warming continues at its current rate, the shelf could disintegrate at some point within the foreseeable future.

The Larsen disintegration events were unusual by past standards. Typically, ice shelves lose mass by iceberg calving and by melting at their upper and lower surfaces. The disintegration events are linked to the ongoing climate warming in the Antarctic Peninsula, about 0.5 °C per decade since the late 1940s, which is a consequence of localized warming of the Antarctic peninsula. This localized warming is caused by anthropogenic global warming, according to some scientists through strengthening of the winds circling the Antarctic.“